


The King's Letters

by Kalypso



Series: Conversations with Lady Pole [4]
Category: Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-19
Updated: 2019-10-19
Packaged: 2020-12-23 19:34:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,819
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21086660
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kalypso/pseuds/Kalypso
Summary: Emma Pole conceives a daring plan to return to Lost-hope, in search of the key to deciphering the letters which the Starecross magicians have copied from Vinculus's body.  But who will she find in charge, and will he help her?





	The King's Letters

**Author's Note:**

  * For [fengirl88](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fengirl88/gifts).

> This is my fourth story in the world of _Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell_, and follows on from [The Last Book of Magic](http://archiveofourown.org/works/16345190); the series shows disconcerting signs of acquiring a plot, though I am not sure where that is going. Emma Pole, now one of the magicians based at Starecross Hall, is continuing her attempts to make sense of the Raven King's text and to help Arabella Strange find her husband. As in the earlier instalments, it is closer to the television dramatisation than to Susanna Clarke's novel, though sometimes I am influenced by the book.

_I belong to no one but myself._

"I think I should return to Lost-hope," said Lady Pole.

Arabella looked up in horror. "You cannot mean that!"

Emma sat down beside her. "Our studies of the Raven King's letters are making little progress. If we cannot find some one to help us, we could spend years..."

"But we have identified two signs! A very important advance, Mr Segundus said!"

It was true that the Starecross magicians had finally guessed the meaning of two of the symbols copied from the skin of Vinculus, and it was thanks to Arabella Strange. Emma and the others had studied them for months, but one evening Arabella had picked up a paper and asked "Is this not very like one of the signs on the banners at Lost-hope?"

Emma had frowned; she remembered the banners from the fairy gentleman's processions usually depicted triumphs over his enemies in macabre detail, but little more. Perhaps her friend recalled them more clearly as an artist, or her enchanted state had made her attentive to what pleased their captor. Arabella hunted through the transcripts, and presently exclaimed: "This one, too! They appeared together. Is it not possible they stand for 'Lost' and 'Hope'?"

Together, they had searched the pages, and concluded that the two signs were never combined, but were written singly, more than once.

"What else can be lost?" asked Mr Segundus.

"Books," suggested Mr Honeyfoot.

"Time," said John Childermass.

"A husband," murmured Arabella, and Emma winced. For the rest, deciphering the letters had become an end in itself, an enthralling puzzle. For Arabella, it might be her best hope of finding Jonathan Strange. And it was to help her that Emma had agreed to study magic.

"It is your discovery that has convinced me I must visit Lost-hope," she said. "If they know the King's letters, we are more likely to find a key there than anywhere in England."

"But what if you were trapped again in that horrible place?" demanded Arabella. "If I lost you too..."

"Before, I was there by the fairy's spell," said Emma. "I will return through my own spell, and control my presence." She hoped she sounded more confident than she felt.

"But the fairy was so powerful..."

"Powerful, and malignant. If he were alive, I am sure he would have tried to take revenge on us. He has not." Vinculus had believed Stephen Black was destined to overthrow the fairy, and Vinculus had a habit of being right.

"How would you get there? The mirrors are broken."

"The same way I always did - through sleep! There is a spell mentioned in Mr Strange's book which will let me travel through dreams." Since she had conjured back the lost copies of _The History and Practice of English Magic_, using the spell Vinculus had given her, she had studied the book with growing understanding.

"I should come with you. Mr Segundus once entered Jonathan's dream..."

"But he has the Sight. And I will not take him; you must not tell them any thing, unless I fail to wake." Mr Segundus and Mr Honeyfoot would certainly try to stop her; Childermass might allow it, but their relations had been strained since she let Vinculus leave.

Arabella finally agreed, but said she would keep watch over her, which Emma gratefully accepted. As she prepared, her fears revived. Suppose the fairy was alive, and merely biding his time?

She held her nerve, and lay down with some papers in one hand. As she cast the spell, drowsiness overtook her; the last thing she remembered was Arabella kissing her forehead.

When Emma opened her eyes, she blinked. "No, this is not where I meant to go!"

She was standing in what appeared to be her husband's drawing-room in Harley-street. She blinked again. The room was grander than she remembered, though she recognized much of the furnishing.

Her eye fell on one of the pictures on the wall. Rather than San Marco, it showed a cylindrical building with a conical thatched roof, under a dazzling sky. All the paintings of Venice which had formed her mother's wedding present had been replaced by scenes from a very different country, with red dust roads, lagoons and palm groves. On a small rosewood table which had once held a Roman bust, she saw a bronze head, with features far from classical. "_African_," she whispered, her hopes rising.

A footman came in, and stared in startled recognition. But he was not one of the Harley-street servants; he was from the fairy's court. "My lady," he said, bowing. "Are you here to see the King?"

"Yes," said Emma, though her body clenched in apprehension.

She did not have to worry long, as a familiar figure entered the room. He was dressed much as she remembered, though in finer cloth, but now wore his hair in loose braids, crowned by a silver diadem.

"Lady Pole!" he exclaimed.

"Stephen," she said. "But should I say Your Majesty?"

He laughed awkwardly. "I don't use either here."

"Where is here? I was looking for Lost-hope."

"This was Lost-hope. It is New-hope now."

"And... the fairy creature?"

"Dead. I buried him under there." He glanced at a table in the centre of the room; for a moment, it seemed to flicker, and Emma thought she glimpsed the tree which had dominated the fairy ballroom.

"This is the same mansion?"

"It is a _brugh_," he explained. "A fairy palace, whose appearance adapts to its king. His tastes were Gothic; on his death, it reverted to a green hill, but then it began to change again..."

"To Harley-street?"

"I had hoped it might give me the home of my ancestors," he said. "But I never knew that place, so the _brugh_ could not find it in my mind. New-hope needed governance, and it recreated the little kingdom I ruled as Sir Walter's butler."

"And the pictures...?"

"The fairies contrived various scenes from Africa for me." He offered her a chair, and sat down on another. "But why are you here? It must be important for you to risk coming, not knowing the old king was dead."

"You are right. Do you know where Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell are?"

"No. I believe it was their magic that gave me the power to kill the fairy. And I saw them here - in the ballroom - trying to rescue Mrs Strange, I think. I was... otherwise engaged. When I was finished, they had vanished."

"Mrs Strange escaped to Padua, and now lives with me among the magicians at Starecross. Mr Strange and Mr Norrell never returned."

"I am glad she is safe, but I cannot tell you what became of them."

"I feared as much. But I had a second purpose." Emma held out the pages she had taken to bed. "Can you read this?"

He took them. "I think so. It is a little different from the script used here, but not much. Where did you find it?"

"We copied it from the body of Vinculus."

He started. "Vinculus?"

"He was born with the book of the Raven King written on his skin..."

"I know. He showed me."

"But it was rewritten when he returned to life..."

He stared at her. "Vinculus is alive?"

"He was when I last saw him," said Emma. "He has left Starecross to search for the Raven King."

He let out a sob. "Thank you. It is a very great relief to know that. The fairy made me kill him... It was the worst thing he forced me to do."

"_You_ hanged Vinculus?"

"Yes. I fought... but the fairy made me act against my will." He shook his head. "The guilt has been with me ever since."

"And the guilt of helping to enslave Mrs Strange?" asked Emma, suddenly irritated by this outpouring of emotion over Vinculus. "The guilt of letting my husband believe I was mad?"

He looked steadily at her. "No one deserves enslavement. Not Mrs Strange; not you; nor I, nor my mother."

"I can hardly be blamed for your mother," she said angrily. "She died before I was born. And I always supported the abolition of the slave trade - as did Sir Walter, whose family freed you and gave you a Christian education."

"I know very well that I suffered far less than others of my colour," he said. "But my mother was stolen from her home, and I have never known my family or my own land. The Poles were good to me, in their way, but moulded me to their needs as the fairy did, though by education, rather than magic. Like them, the fairy always believed he was showing me great kindness."

"You do not wish to help me," said Emma, rising to her feet. "I will go."

"I will help you," he said. He snapped his fingers, and a quill pen appeared between them. "I will write a translation between the lines, here; from that you should be able to decipher the rest."

For a while, the only sound was the scratching of his pen. Then, without looking up, he asked, "How is Sir Walter?"

"We have lived apart these two years. I believe he is writing a memoir."

"That should be most interesting." He finished, and handed her the annotated pages. "Here. I think you will be able to carry on."

"Thank you, Stephen," she said. "Or... what name _do_ you use here?"

He shrugged. "I don't have one. Vinculus called me 'nameless slave'; now I am the nameless king. I will not find my true name until I die and find my mother again."

Emma nodded. "But the Poles were not wrong in naming you Stephen," she said, reaching out to the silver circlet around his head. "Did you know it is Greek for 'crown'?"

"Thank you! I did not. Goodbye, Lady Pole!"

"Emma!" whispered Arabella. "Are you back?"

She sat up slowly. Behind her friend, Childermass stood in the shadows, his arms folded. "You promised not to tell them," she complained.

"She didn't," said Childermass. "I felt magic being done, and came to see what it was."

"Belasis, I suppose," Emma muttered. At least he had not interfered.

"Did you achieve your purpose?" he asked.

"I saw Stephen Black... he is a king now. I am sorry, Bell, he knew nothing of Jonathan's whereabouts."

"And the King's letters?" asked Childermass.

"He translated one page, and said we should manage the rest." She picked up the papers, which had fallen to the floor. Here it was; a strange silvery script. "_They will cut down my people, and trample them underfoot, but will not silence their voices._"

"Hmm," said Childermass. "That sounds a little like the Johannites of Manchester."

"Indeed," said Emma, "and I think I can guess now what the King's new book is."

He looked at her sharply. "And that is?"

She smiled. "A political manifesto."

**Author's Note:**

> The story of _Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell_ takes place over a decade, from the autumn of 1806 to the spring of 1817. It happened that I wrote the first instalment of what has become a series about Lady Pole in 2016, and it was set in late 1816 - the only part to take place within the scope of the original. I wrote the second a year later, and it was set shortly after the end of the canon, in 1817. So each succeeding incident has taken place 200 years before the year of composition. As I have been much preoccupied this year with the bicentenary of the [Peterloo Massacre](http://peterloomassacre.org/), and the Johannites of canon who rally under the Raven King's banner derive from the Luddites of our own universe, I thought it would not be unreasonable to hint at a link between the Johannites and the Radicals who were attacked in St Peter's Field. Uskglass and Liberty!


End file.
